Our Strategies

Direct Legal Representation

We believe that direct legal representation is a fundamental civil right. Anyone whose life is impacted by unjust immigration policies and laws deserves to have an advocate at their side if they desire. SFDP provides accessible legal services to immigrants throughout New Mexico and the El Paso/Ciudad Juárez border zone. We use innovative service models to break down barriers to effective legal representation, and by valuing cultural competency, we create empowering relationships with clients. Our goal is to provide client-centered services to ensure that individual goals are pursued and met as effectively as possible.

Today, Santa Fe Dreamers Project currently has over 1,150 open cases. Hundreds of these clients are subject to years-long processing delays with US Citizenship and Immigration Services, limited visa numbers due to statutory caps, or have deportation proceedings that are stuck in court backlogs. This results in immigration cases that can take more than 5 years to resolve. Our model of legal services is based on the commitment that our staff partners with our clients until their cases are complete, regardless of political and bureaucratic conditions.

Our Areas of Focus

  • Our broken immigration system separates and disenfranchises families every day. We saw our government perhaps at its most callous during the Trump Administration’s “Zero Tolerance” era, when children were forcibly removed from their caregivers and sent to separate detention centers, and images of children in cages dominated the news. However, we know that family separation also occurs every time an immigrant is arrested in a raid, or when a visa application is denied. Deportation and lack of immigration status almost always result in individuals being separated by their loved ones, whether it’s by the border or by the walls of a detention center. 

    SFDP provides accessible low bono and pro bono legal services to mixed status families in a wide variety of legal services that support employment authorization, family-based immigration, permanent residency, citizenship, and advance parole. Through these forms of immigration protections and benefits, families are able to enjoy increased security, stability, and freedom of movement, helping them stay and thrive together.

  • The Santa Fe Dreamers Project Humanitarian Visa Program provides pro bono representation for refugees and asylees, individuals and families impacted by domestic abuse, violent crime, and abused, abandoned or neglected children. This program helps survivors of violence get on to a path toward improved access to healthcare, employment, and financial security, thereby empowering them to gain independence from their abusers. 

    The U.S. Congress has created immigration protections specifically for immigrant victims of crime through programs like the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), the U Visa, T Visa, and Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) program. These visa programs serve a dual function - to increase community safety by encouraging immigrant victims of crime to cooperate with law enforcement, while at the same time providing immigrants with the legal protections they need for their individual health, safety, and stability. These visa programs enable immigrant victims of crime to access both criminal justice and needed healthcare services in the wake of traumatic events. However, these programs have many detailed statutory and evidentiary requirements, so it is almost impossible for immigrants to be able to actually access these visa programs without legal representation. 

    Santa Fe Dreamers Project (SFDP) has 10 years of experience in these complex legal matters and we have represented hundreds of individuals and families. We have built strong relationships with law enforcement, courts, and the local USCIS field office to better serve our clients. We are able to connect our clients with other needed community resources such as bilingual counseling, court victim advocates, and public benefits specialists who can help our clients get the additional supportive services they need.

  • In 2017, the country’s only dedicated detention unit for transgender women was opened in the Cibola County Detention Center outside of Grants, New Mexico. Santa Fe Dreamers Project began services at that time to serve the individuals detained at Cibola with asylum services and advocacy for release from detention, asylum representation, and post-release services for transwomen coming out of detention. Through this project, SFDP partnered with hundreds of LGBTQ+ asylum seekers coming through Cibola. 

    In 2020, due to the tireless advocacy of our community, we celebrated the closure of the trans detention pod at Cibola, but SFDP’s LGBTQ+ Asylum Project continues. Shortly after the closure of the trans pod at Cibola, the Covid-19 pandemic began, and then-President Trump took advantage of the public health crisis to further his own hateful migration policies. Using Title 42, Trump ordered the closure of the border to asylum-seekers, effectively slamming the door and shirking our international responsibility to welcome those seeking protection from persecution and violence. 

    During the Title 42 era, SFDP represented scores of LGBTQ+ individuals in applications for exceptions to Title 42, effectively allowing them to enter the US to seek asylum despite the border closure. SFDP was one of only a handful of organizations in the country authorized to advocate for individuals with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to request Title 42 exceptions. 

    In May 2023, the border closure under Title 42 ended when the public health emergency was determined to be over, but the situation at the border has hardly improved. Now, using CBPOne, the government has created a new way to keep asylum-seekers stuck at the border, sometimes waiting for months for an appointment to present themselves to request asylum. 

    Today, SFDP is working with partners on the ground in Ciudad Juarez to provide LGBTQ+ asylum-seekers with the information and tools they need to be able to navigate this new landscape, including know your rights presentations, orientations to the US asylum system, and preparation for the first interviews with the asylum office (credible or reasonable fear interviews, also known as fear interviews). We are continuing to monitor conditions on both sides of the border and in detention to make sure that LGBTQ+ asylum-seekers get the services they need in this constantly changing landscape.

Community Education 

Immigration issues touch all of us. Every family, neighborhood, school, and workplace is impacted by immigration, whether they realize it or not. As legal experts and advocates, we share our knowledge widely because we believe that an informed community is a powerful one. We host educational events, provide free legal consultations, and share high quality, vetted information via our website, newsletters, and social media, with the goal of providing access to reliable information about our immigration legal system.

This year, we participated in many community events including resource fairs, educational summits, “know your rights” presentations, and more. We also launched a new series of community education events called “Immigration Conversations.” These events are open to the community and raise awareness about immigration issues, with speakers including our staff, immigration experts, community partners, and impacted individuals.

Collaboration 

We recognize that our clients and their families are more than just their immigration status. They are whole people with complex, multi-dimensional circumstances and experiences, and their immigration legal needs are only one part of their lives, and we can only do our part if our clients' other basic needs are being met. Collaboration is not only a good idea, it is essential to our goals.

We are proud to nurture partnerships with many community organizations across the region in a variety of ways. We believe that we are more than the sum of our parts, and that by working together with colleagues across disciplines, we achieve better outcomes for our community.

  • We work with organizations closely on many of our legal programs, including partners in remote areas of the state, including Las Cumbres Family Services, Valencia Shelter Services, and New Mexico Dream Team. 

  • We partner with other organizations to advance advocacy goals, including through legislative advocacy, impact litigation, and other campaigns. Our partners in advocacy include ACLU of New Mexico, Innovation Law Lab, New Mexico Immigrant Law Center, NMCSAP, the NM Center on Law and Poverty, and many more. 

  • We are part of a robust network of agencies providing services who make referrals to ensure that our shared clients receive all the services they need. These partners include Children, Youth and Families Department of New Mexico, Consulate of Mexico in Albuquerque, Esperanza, Solace, Enlace Comunitario, Centro Sávila, Casa de Salud, Gerard’s House, Sky Center, Tierra Nueva, Adelante, La Familia, and many more. This network serves as a productive source of mutual client referrals, and collectively this group is able to assist clients with wrap-around supportive services across a wide variety of issues including housing, food, clothing, medical care, and counseling. 

  • Our LGBTQ+ Border Project collaborates with many other service providers to work with asylum-seekers in the El Paso/Ciudad Juarez border zone. These partners share insights on the landscape for borders, shelters, and Border Patrol enforcement issues, as well as resources necessary to work with clients on both sides of the border. These partners include Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, Derechos Humanos Integral en Accion, and Jesuit Refugee Services. Some of these service providers also refer clients to us and vice versa. 

  • We are members of the Border Immigration Collaborative which is a group of service providers from New Mexico and El Paso that provides support to one another by sharing knowledge. Situations like the asylum ban are unprecedented for many providers so sharing knowledge and engaging in collaborative strategy is key to our success in an area where there are no guidebooks to follow. 

Advocacy

As legal service providers, we are witnesses to the ways that our unjust immigration system intersects with individuals’ lives on a daily basis. We work in solidarity with community members and organizations to join in the movement to transform our immigration laws and policies. Whether by participating in coalitions, media campaigns, impact litigation, or legislative and regulatory advocacy, we add our voices to calls for positive change.

We have used documentary films to advance advocacy campaigns featuring our clients’ stories in partnership with Sylvia Johnson of Free Roaming Studios. These films resulted in major victories including the closure of the trans pod at Cibola County Detention Center, and the divestment of the New Mexico Educational Retirement Board from private prison companies involved in immigration detention. You can see these two films, Refuge(e) and Luz’s Story, online on demand. 

SFDP has also served as an organizational plaintiff in litigation against government agencies or actors. In 2020, we partnered with MALDEF in litigation against the Trump Administration regarding Trump-era limitations on the DACA program. We also have partnered with the ACLU of New Mexico in litigation as an organizational plaintiff in a lawsuit regarding individuals who were pepper sprayed during the Covid-19 pandemic in ICE custody. Through partnering with impact litigation organizations, we are able to use our position as direct service providers to prompt policy changes that are needed to safeguard our clients’ rights. 

Recently, SFDP participated very actively in the 2023 New Mexico Legislative Session supporting three important pieces of legislation advancing immigrants’ rights in New Mexico: 

  • SB 172, also known as the Dignity, Not Detention Bill, which would address the issue of ICE contracting with private prisons in New Mexico to house asylum-seekers and other immigrants. Along with our coalition partners, our staff spoke with legislators, joined committee hearings, and spoke at a rally at the State Capitol building about the importance of this bill. Unfortunately, the bill did not pass this year but we look forward to supporting similar legislation in a future legislative session.  

  • SB 350, also known as the “The U Visa Certification Act.” This bill proposed a standardized process for law enforcement agencies to certify that a person was a victim of a qualifying crime for U Visa eligibility purposes and that they were helpful in the detection, investigation, or prosecution of the qualifying criminal activity. SFDP staff provided legal analysis to the bill drafters, advocated for the bill directly with legislators, and provided public comment for this bill during committee hearings. Although the bill passed its committees, it did not make it to a floor vote before the end of the legislative session. We look forward to supporting similar legislation in the future. 

  • HB 15, also known as the "Special Immigrant Juvenile Classification" Bill.  This important piece of legislation raised the statutory eligibility for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status in New Mexico to 21, to match the federal requirement and increase access to this important benefit for undocumented youth. During the 2023 legislative session, SFDP worked alongside community partners to advocate for and provide community education for HB 15, including providing comment and testimony during committee hearings and speaking at a rally. This change in law allows young people to petition for a custody order or kinship-guardianship order up to the age of 21, an important change from the previous cap of up to 18 years old, or 19 if still in high school. This bill passed and was signed into law this spring.